How to change your skincare routine for autumn

Our Skincare Expert Jennifer Rock gives a complete guide to updating your skincare routine for autumn.

Is it time to reluctantly admit that the summer is over? Even if your mind is in denial, our skin may admit it soon. I believe that your core skincare products should not change excessively year round, but if you notice that your skin needs different things dependent on season, maybe you do need to make some minor edits.

The Skin Nerd

See some of Jennifer's previous posts:

The Skincare Essentials You Need to Pack For a Festival

The Lowdown On Double-Cleansing and Why You Should Be Doing It 

Skincare Myths That Are Actually True

The Skincare You Need To Bring While Travelling

Protection

If you are on the drier or more dehydrated side of the skin spectrum, the first thing you’ll notice now that the cold winds doth blow is skin dehydration. Your skin may be feeling less plump, less hydrated and a bit rougher in texture on its surface. Wind strips the skin of its moisture so you need to protect your skin from the bluster, especially if you suffer from psoriasis, eczema or rosacea.

A physical barrier can help. Literally, wrap your scarf over your face when facing extreme weather conditions. Alternatively, a slightly thicker moisturising cream will help to protect your skin’s barrier from wind-related damage.

Avène’s Cicalfate Restorative Skin Cream is formulated as a protective cream for those with inflammatory skin conditions. If you find that the wind irritates your pre-existing skin concerns, this will be your saviour. It also aids in healing and is anti-bacterial.

Avène Cicalfate Restorative Skin Cream €11.49

For those with skin that is sensitive to the wind and becomes dry and irritated, Dermalogica’s Barrier Repair is one of their hero products and much beloved by beauty editors worldwide. It contains soothing oils like evening primrose oil as well as antioxidant vitamins E and C to protect the skin from free radical damage. I like that this can be popped on top of serums, moisturisers and SPFs in autumn and winter without you having to completely overhaul your skincare regime.

You have to feed your skin’s protective barrier from the inside, too. Up your omega supplement intake! As in, you can genuinely double it.

Dermalogica Barrier Repair Shielding Protective Moisturiser €39.69 

Don’t forget your broad spectrum SPF either. You need it all year round due to the eternal presence of UVA rays, the type of rays from the sun that can even get through clouds and windows. UVA is heavily associated with accelerated ageing so SPF up to help to prevent wrinkles, lines, lax skin and pigmentation.

Exfoliation

When we did have our sunny summer, perhaps you were more cautious with your slightly photo-sensitising exfoliating acids. Well, now that the sky is clouds galore, you can feel free to kick up your exfoliation a notch. Once or twice a week, I mean. We still don’t over-exfoliate, nor do we use scrubs - we don’t want to damage our skin’s protective barrier.

An acid that suits the autumn/winter months quite well is lactic acid as it has the dual benefits of being an exfoliant whilst hydrating the skin with its moisture-drawing properties. A nice, mild exfoliating product for if you haven’t exfoliated with acids before is REN’s Ready Steady Glow Daily AHA Tonic.

REN Ready Steady Glow Daily AHA Tonic €32

It contains the lovely hydrating lactic acid as well as precursors to azelaic acid, another alpha-hydroxy acid that is fabulous for lightening skin pigmentation which many of us will have some of post-summer.

Hydration

As I said earlier, the wind can strip your skin of its hydration so we want to simultaneously protect from this and rehydrate the skin at night, too. We need to add something nourishing and a little bit heavier to our skincare routines in autumn alongside our correcting serums and our hyaluronic acid.

An antioxidant and omega-rich facial oil will enrich your skincare routine with that bit of extra lipidic moisture that you may need. Urban Veda’s Reviving Facial Oil (€39.99) ticks those boxes due to the organic sea buckthorn oil, rosehip oil, hempseed oil and shativari extract.

Urban Veda Reviving Facial Oil €39.99

Apply this after your key serums or you can mix it in with them or your moisturiser. However, you shouldn’t be mixing this in with your SPF as this can compromise its effectiveness!

An oft-neglected part of our skin is the lips. They are particularly prone to cracking, dryness and soreness in blustery, chilly autumn so we need to give them some nourishing love. A slightly pricier but oh, so worth it lip product is the IMAGE Skincare Ormedic Balancing Lip Enhancement Complex. It contains peptides to stimulate collagen and elastin, two core proteins that give skin density and elasticity, omega-rich avocado oil and antioxidants vitamin E and coenzyme Q10.

IMAGE SKINCARE Ormedic Balancing Lip Enhancement Complex €26

Another important point to make is that if autumn weather doesn’t affect your skin, you are grand to stick to your usual skincare routine. Monitor your skin and only adjust accordingly. If it ain’t broke…

Jennifer Rock aka The Skin Nerd is a skincare guru with a skin consultation service that everyone needs to check out. Follow Jennifer on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.